Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: laplata
I was curious about the largest fire and it was in 1910 and burned over 3 million acres, about the size of Connecticut. It spanned over parts of OR, WA, ID and MT.

Yes. The Great Fire of 1910. It was a situation where between 1,000 and 3,000 smaller fires with differing origins combined into one large fire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_1910

From the wiki article: "There were a great number of problems that contributed to the destruction caused by the Great Fire of 1910. The fire season started early that year, because the spring and summer of 1910 were extremely dry[6] and the summer sufficiently hot to have been described as "like no others."[1] The drought resulted in forests that were teeming with dry fuel, which had previously grown up on abundant autumn and winter moisture.[7] Fires were set by hot cinders flung from locomotives, sparks, lightning, and backfiring crews, and by mid-August, there were 1,000 to 3,000 fires burning in Idaho, Montana, Washington, and British Columbia.[5]

Smoke from the fire was said to have been seen as far east as Watertown, New York, and as far south as Denver, Colorado. It was reported that at night, five hundred miles (800 km) out into the Pacific Ocean, ships could not navigate by the stars because the sky was cloudy with smoke.[5]

The extreme scorching heat of the sudden blowup can be attributed to the great Western White Pine forests that blanketed Idaho. The hydrocarbons in the resinous sap boiled out and created a cloud of highly flammable gas that blanketed hundreds of square miles, which then spontaneously detonated dozens of times, each time sending tongues of flame thousands of feet into the sky, and creating a rolling wave of fire that destroyed anything and everything in its path.[8] "

73 posted on 08/03/2018 10:16:10 AM PDT by IYAS9YAS (There are two kinds of people: Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies ]


To: IYAS9YAS

Amazing. Thank you.

During June and July of this year We had a 53,000 acre fire 12 miles north of town (Durango, Colo.) that may have been caused by cinders from one of the narrow gauge engines that travel between Durango and Silverton.


78 posted on 08/03/2018 10:41:03 AM PDT by laplata (Liberals/Progressives have diseased minds.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 73 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson